Time for another experimental film. I got two rolls of this stuff from my friend Nathan last year (or was it the year before?) It has been on my todo-list for a while now, but since the film is so incredibly slow it is difficult to shoot during autumn or winter up here in the north where we get so very little daylight during those seasons.
Kodak 2254 is actually something called an “intermediate film”. This is how wikipedia defines it:
“An intermediate is produced by exposing film to the original camera negative. The intermediate is then used to mass-produce the films that get distributed to theaters. Color grading is done by varying the amount of red, green, and blue light used to expose the intermediate. This seeks to be able to replace or augment the photochemical approach to creating this intermediate.”
The full name of the emulsion at hand is “VISION3 Color Digital Intermediate Film 5254 / 2254”, so it is a color film, and made for making digital intermediates. Instead of exposing the original film on this film, you scan the original negative, make your changes and then make another negative with a laser printer. So this stuff is never meant to be shot in a camera, or in daylight. Take a look at the data sheet for more information about it.
For those reasons, the film has no remjet. It is an ECN2 film, so it is actually cross processed in this experiment. In my experience processing ECN2 films in C41 gives you a little bit extra contrast and also some wonkyness with colors. But as you will see, this film has some weird colors to begin with, so it is not a big deal in this case.
Looking at the curves from the data sheet, we can already guess a little bit about what it will look like:
As we can see in the spectral sensitivity curves, the three layers have very different sensitivity. The yellow layer (which gives blue tones) is higher than the magenta layer (which gives green tones) and we have very little sensitivity in the cyan (red tones). The B and G curves also go very close together in the shadows and midtones which will probably lead to some color crossover in blues and greens, especially in C41 (but i am not an expert in this so I might be wrong here)
After developing in my Fuji Hunt C41 kit, I scanned the roll with my Kodak Pakon F135+ with the integrated PSI software. The pictures came out very very blue at first, the color correction software probably had no idea what was going on. The orange film base is also much more red than normal color negative films. I did color corrections and adjustments to try to get the images as close to real life as I could.
It does have a special kind of look, some colors are very muted and desaturated while blues have a lot of pop. Also since a normal exposure in sunlight is much longer than usual, you also get some interesting effects. Clouds go blurry, people and cars are blurry, and there is something “weird” with the light that sticks out for me.
So do I like this film? I think it’s another of those gimmick films that are so popular these days. Companies buying short ends from film labs, putting them in cartridges and making a few bucks. Nothing wrong with that really, but I wish people would not be so much in search of gimmicks and experiments, and instead shoot more professional films like Fujifilm 400H so that those could survive. Every new film shooter goes directly to the experimental films, pushing bw films ten stops, doing stand development in coffee and beer, etc etc.
What is interesting with this film though is the very slow speed. You could for example shoot in a studio with high power strobes and still shoot wide open apertures. Or do reaaally long exposures in broad daylight. Or several hour long exposure at night.
Alright, that’s it for this time. Check out my shop for issues of my film photography zine (and maybe other stuff if you are reading this in the future).